Home Network with signal boosters

Dear Firewalla,

I recently purchased a Firewalla Blue to use in our home in Shanghai, China. So far it is working well, though I have some questions that are perhaps unique to our setup.

Setup Questions:

Currently the arrangement we have is a router/switch from the ISP that then has a wifi router (ASUS) physically plugged into the router. In addition, we have a signal booster elsewhere in the apartment to enable the wifi signal to reach the back of the home.

When the Firewalla was plugged into the router/switch I saw no network traffic even though devices were using the network other than the Xbox which has to be plugged into the router/switch as the Xbox will not work when plugged into the ASUS as it will not connect to multiplayer games through the VPN which is installed on the ASUS router.

Similarly, when the Firewalla is connected to the ASUS router I do not see any traffic from devices that are connected to the router/switch (only the Xbox) or that are connected to the signal booster, even though it is boosting the signal from the ASUS router.

So, I have the Firewalla connected to the signal booster as that is what most devices are connected to, but this is not ideal as once the kids figure out I cannot see what they are doing when connected to the ASUS router they will switch to that signal source away from the booster source.

My hope was that, in a setup like ours, I would plug the Firewalla into the router/switch and the Firewalla would detect all signals coming through that initial router/switch including those from connected wireless routers and the traffic going through them. Is there a way I can achieve that?

Thank you for your assistance,

Regards,

Alex Braden

Firewalla

September 06, 2019 23:07

From the description, it does look like your network extender is really a router. Meaning, it has its own network, which is connected to your main router. If everything is connected to this router, then, this is the right place to connect.

But if you have other devices talking to the main router, then, firewalla will not be able to see it.

Firewalla needs to be deployed per network.

September 07, 2019 08:16

There are some filtering done in China, so the best way is to contact help@firewalla.com and see if the support team can figure out which services are being blocked by the great Chinese firewall.

Home Network with signal boosters

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